Viacom18 relies on Nevion contribution solution for TATA IPL 23

Millions of fans will be able to watch the TATA Indian Premier League – IPL 23 cricket thanks to Névion (Sony) technology integrated by Viacom18 (Network18 Group).

Viacom18, which holds the digital rights to the TATA IPL 23 for its OTT platform JioCinema, needed a solution to connect twelve stadiums live to three of its production studios with distances of up to 2,000 kilometres. To meet this challenge, the company chose the Virtuoso software-defined media node and VideoIPath orchestration platform from Nevion (Sony), a fully redundant solution that offers seamless transport according to the SMPTE 2022-7 standard.

Virtuoso is used to transport up to 16 HD (3G SDI) and 4 x UHD (12G SDI) signals from the stadiums, as well as 4 x HD (3G SDI) return feeds, over a diversified and redundant IP MPLS wide area network (WAN). Video signals are compressed for transport using JPEG 2000 and JPEG XS to maintain a high quality contribution feed with low latency. VideoIPath, on the other hand, is initially responsible for monitoring network connectivity and signal flows. Its role will be expanded in the project’s next phases to include network control and signal orchestration. Nevion also provides additional on-site services to ensure the operation of this critical infrastructure in support of TATA IPL 2023.

Rajat Nigam, CTO of Network18 Group, takes stock of the challenges of this major production using Nevion systems: “We had the vision of providing a never-before-experience of cricket to Indian viewers by providing live matches in UHD/4K format for the first time and in 12 languages including VR360 Cam experience. We had our own Video IP network of Jio and the solution which was developed in partnership with Nevion, gives us a high capacity and glitch-free video network from different locations in India. We have on an average more than 75 million consumers on our platform daily and have witnessed more than 24 million concurrent consumers on our OTT JioCinema.” Finally, Hans Hasselback, Chief Commercial Officer of Nevion, adds: “This project is a perfect illustration of the importance of media networks in enabling business objectives. We were proud to have delivered that solution in record time.”